Everything Science Forum

Here's an interesting site about constellations and stars

http://walt.stcloudstate.edu/Dome/

Constellation list

http://einstein.stcloudstate.edu/Dome/clicks/constlist.html

Star List

http://einstein.stcloudstate.edu/Dome/clicks/alphalist.html

It covers the main stars (usually 1 or 2 brightest) in each constellation.

I'll be headed to San Diego for a week, so I might try to get up to Mt. Palomar.  The site is run by Caltech, and they still do some interesting work, even with the Hubble and all the new advanced telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.  The observatory is just northeast of Escondido, off highway (Interstate 15).

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/palomar/

The website has links to other Caltech Observatories.  They were affiliated with the Keck observatory, which is now run by a different institution through Univ. of Hawaii for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/geninfo/about.html

The University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy manages an 11,600-acre science reserve surrounding the summit. In the year 2000, a dozen major research teams occupied this reserve, representing a capital investment of more than $500 million and employment for hundreds of Big Island residents.

GARY  W. KRONK ' S page ( http://comets.amsmeteors.org/ )

http://hubble.nasa.gov/image-gallery/astronomy-images.html

Aurora on Jupiter - talk about northern lights!  How cool would it be to see this in person.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught the eerie, wispy tendrils of a dark interstellar cloud being destroyed by the passage of one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster. Like a flashlight beam shining off the wall of a cave, the star is reflecting light off the surface of pitch black clouds of cold gas laced with dust. These are called reflection nebulae.

This ghostly apparition is actually an interstellar cloud caught in the process of destruction by strong radiation from a nearby hot star. This haunting picture, snapped by the Hubble telescope, shows a cloud illuminated by light from the bright star Merope. Located in the Pleiades star cluster, the cloud is called IC 349 or Barnard's Merope Nebula.

STScI-PRC2000-36 (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2000/36/)

Here is my astronomy site

NJ Night Sky (http://www.njnightsky.com/nuke/html/index.php)

Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory
933 N Cherry Ave., Rm. N204
Tucson AZ 85721-0065

http://www.as.arizona.edu/

StarDate (http://stardate.org/) is the public education and outreach arm of the University of Texas McDonald Observatory. Our English and Spanish radio programs air daily on more than 500 stations. And our popular bimonthly astronomy magazine is the perfect skywatching companion for amateur astronomers or anyone interested in celestial events and space exploration. We also offer astronomy resources to teachers, the media, and the public.

Send mail to:
StarDate
1 University Station A2100
Austin, TX 78712

Phone: 512-471-5285 (better to just go on-line)

McDonald Observatory - http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/

McDonald Observatory, a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin, is one of the world's leading centers for astronomical research, teaching, and public education and outreach. Observatory facilities are located atop Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, which offer some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States. The Observatory's administrative offices are on the UT-Austin campus. The Observatory works with the University's Department of Astronomy on both research and teaching. McDonald's principal research telescopes are:

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope
With its 9.2-meter (433-inch) mirror, the HET is one of the world's largest optical telescopes. It's optimized for spectroscopy, the decoding of light from stars and galaxies to study their properties. This makes it ideal for searching for planets around other stars, and studying distant galaxies, exploding stars, black holes, and more. The HET, dedicated in 1997, is a joint project of The University of Texas at Austin, The Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

The Harlan J. Smith Telescope
Constructed 1966-68, the Smith Telescope has a 2.7-meter (107-inch) mirror, which was the third largest in the world when built. The telecope is used every clear night of the year.

The Otto Struve Telescope
Constructed 1933-39, the Struve Telescope was the first major telescope to be built at McDonald Observatory. Its 2.1-meter (82-inch) mirror was the second largest in the world at the time. The telescope is still in use today.

Other Telescopes
McDonald also operates a 0.8-meter (30-inch) telescope, and a laser system that measures the distance between Earth and the Moon and tracks the drift of Earth's continents.

Check this place for "Star Parties".

Visitors Center
To hear a recorded message detailing hours, prices, and other information about visiting the Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas, call toll-free 877-984-7827. For other inquiries, call 432-426-3640 or send email to info@mcdonaldobservatory.org.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/absorption.html

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/spectra.html

http://jersey.uoregon.edu/elements/Elements.html (click on the element on this page to see its emission or absorption spectrum in the visible portion - 4000 to 7500 angstroms (or 400-750 nm))

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/ems3.html (good overview of electromagnetic spectrum from infrared to gamma-rays)

http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/allen/spectral_classification.html

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/spectra.html

http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ASS_Atlas/frames.html

http://ggebhard.bene-net.de/aspec.html

CERRO TOLOLO INTER-AMERICAN OBSERVATORY

http://www.ctio.noao.edu/

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is a complex of astronomical telescopes and instruments located approximately 80 km to the East of La Serena, Chile at an altitude of 2200 Meters. From USA, phone (011)-56-51-205200.

Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), supports the most diverse collection of astronomical observatories on Earth for nighttime optical and infrared astronomy and daytime study of the Sun. Founded in 1958, KPNO operates three major nighttime telescopes, shares site responsibilities with the National Solar Observatory and hosts the facilities of consortia which operate 19 optical telescopes and two radio telescopes. (See the Tenant Observatories list.) Kitt Peak is located 56 miles southwest of Tucson, AZ, and has a Visitor Center open daily to the public.

http://www.noao.edu/kpno/

http://www.noao.edu/

http://www.ls.eso.org/index.html

La Silla is a 2400-m mountain, bordering the southern extremity of the Atacama desert in Chile. It is located about 160 Km north of La Serena. Its geographical coordinates are: Latitude 29º 15' south & Longitude 70º 44' west.

Originally known as Cinchado, the mountain was renamed La Silla (the saddle) after its shape. It rises quite isolated and remote from any artificial light and dust sources (astronomy's worst enemies). La Silla was the first ESO observatory built in Chile. Its history is full of optimism and disappointments, ups and downs, since its beginnings in the 50's until the middle of the 70's when the observatory became a reality.

http://www.ls.eso.org/site/AboutLSO.htm

WMAP Mission Overview

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is named after Dr. David Wilkinson, a member of the science team and pioneer in the study of cosmic background radiation. The science goals of the WMAP broadly dictate that the relative CMB temperature be measured accurately over the full sky with high angular resolution and sensitivity. The overriding priority in the design was the need to control systematic errors in the final maps. The specific goal of WMAP is to map the relative CMB temperature over the full sky with an angular resolution of at least 0.3°, a sensitivity of 20 µK per 0.3° square pixel, with systematic artifacts limited to 5 µK per pixel.

To achieve these goals, WMAP uses differential microwave radiometers that measure temperature differences between two points on the sky. WMAP observes the sky from an orbit about the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange point, 1.5 million km from Earth. This vantage point offers an exceptionally stable environment for observing since the observatory can always point away from the Sun, Earth and Moon while maintaining an unobstructed view to deep space. WMAP scans the sky in such a way as to cover ~30% of the sky each day and as the L2 point follows the Earth around the Sun WMAP observes the full sky every six months. To facilitate rejection of foreground signals from our own Galaxy, WMAP uses five separate frequency bands from 22 to 90 GHz.

(Source: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm/ob_tech1.html)

General relativity explained with pictures

http://scholar.uwinnipeg.ca/courses/38/4500.6-001/Cosmology/space_and_time.htm

http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/

This is a collection of many of the best images from NASA's planetary exploration program. The collection has been extracted from the interactive program "Welcome to the Planets" which was distributed on the Planetary Data System Educational CD-ROM Version 1.5 in December 1995. It has also been updated with the addition of more recent images.

This collection replaces the former on-line version of Welcome to the Planets. Internal links within this site are not identical to the old site, so please adjust any links to this site accordingly.

The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/ETEmain.html

for example, try "ambipolar diffusion"

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ambipolar_diffusion.html

Observatories on Mauna Kea

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/

On this image, one can right click on any dome and transfer to the page for that observatory.

http://www.homestead.com/mstecker/astsite1.html

www.earthsky.org

Radio programs and articles on topics in astronomy.

Full Moon Atlas/Lunar Navigator

http://www.lunarrepublic.com/atlas/index.shtml

They claim: A complete series of interactive lunar maps, with more than 2,500 geographic formations (including craters, mountains, lakes, seas and valleys) identified simply by moving your mouse cursor over the feature. You must have Javascript turned on in order to access this function.

The western shore of Mare Fecunditatis dominates the right side of the photograph, with Mare Nectaris covering much of the lower-center portion. The southeastern section of Mare Tranquillitatis is visible in the upper left corner. The large twin craters Theophilus and Cyrillus, on the western flank of Nectaris, are visible at lower left.

Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal - published by Springer Verlag 1969-2000.

http://aa.springer.de/
http://aa.springer.de/tocs.htm - journal from Nov 1996 - Dec 2000, articles available on-line free of charge.

The issues from 1969-1996 are supposed to be available on-line through Springer, however I was unable to access them using available links.

Since 2000, the journal is published by EDP Sciences
http://www.edpsciences.org/journal/index.cfm?edpsname=aa
subscription required (207 Euros for individual on-line (electronic) subscription).

Australia Telescope Outreach and Education
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/

Astrophysics for Senior Physics
Astronomy is perhaps the oldest of sciences yet continues to be a thriving area of scientific investigation. Scarcely a week passes without some news item regarding a new astronomical discovery or event. The development of techniques such as spectroscopy and photography in the nineteenth century led to the application of Physics to the analysis of astronomical information - Astrophysics became a scientific discipline. The twentieth century saw a dramatic developments in technology that allowed astronomers to finally start investigating all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Already the new century has seen exciting discoveries and new technologies come into more widespread use. The future of astrophysical research is bound to be just as enthralling and challenging as the past.


Themes and Other Key Pages
The Astrophysics option can be broken up into six themes, reflecting the bold points within the syllabus. These are:

1. Making Observations
2. Astrometry
3. Spectroscopy
4. Photometry
5. Binary and Variable Stars
6. The Life and Death of Stars

Basically online text book.

Moon tracker -

http://www.avalon.net/~bstuder/moontrack.html

Determing the earth's orbital velocity -

http://www.avalon.net/~bstuder/earth_lab.html

i have no idea what to write alli know is i want to learn about this kind of stuff like stars cause they really interest me...so if u know a little something can u please email me at htownprecious1@yahoo.com

The best site for addressing myths and common misperceptions in astronomy is Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy site: http://www.badastronomy.com/
There's also a great forum there with a good bunch of folks to post/chat with. Anything astronomy, all the usual myths like Apollo hoax, and Planet Nibiru nonsense are regular topics but so are all the latest greatest astronomy topics and then some.


The following are all linked and related sites I check daily to see if I should stay up and watch for auroras. Spaceweather.com also will note near Earth objects coming our way and any passing comets that might be in the neighborhood. If they haven't updated the NEOs you can get to the source from a link on the site. The NEO is a fun site as well.

SOHO Website - http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

Solar Weather - http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/spaceweather/

http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html

Planetary Nebula Observer's Home Page

http://www.blackskies.com/index1.html


Neat Southern Planetaries

http://www.blackskies.com/pnweek00.htm#Starting

The Astronomical Society of New South Wales Inc.

http://www.asnsw.com/index.html

AstroNotes Online

The Newsletter of the Ottawa Centre
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

http://ottawa.rasc.ca/observers/antop.html

The Ottawa Centre publishes AstroNotes monthly except for June and August. AstroNotes is the premiere source of information about activities and meetings in the Centre, members' observations and projects, and "what's happening in the heavens". Copies are distributed at Observers' Group meetings and subsequently mailed to subscribers unable to attend.

Sun Position Plotter - Java applet

http://www.jgiesen.de/sunplotter/

Instructor Pages (http://www.astro.umd.edu/courses/instructorpages.html) from the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park.

SEDS Messier Database (http://www.seds.org/messier/Messier.html)

The Stars of the Milky Way (http://members.nova.org/~sol/chview/chv5.htm)

American Association of Variable Star Observers (http://www.aavso.org/)

The AAVSO was founded in 1911 at Harvard College Observatory to coordinate variable star observations made largely by amateur astronomers. In 1954, the AAVSO became an independent, private research organization. Today with members in more than 40 countries, over 10 million observations to date, and headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, it is the world’s largest association of variable star observers in existence.

Membership in the AAVSO is open to anyone interested in variable stars and in contributing to the support of valuable research. Since professional astronomers have neither the time nor the telescopes needed to gather data on the brightness changes of thousands of variables, amateurs have been making a real and useful contribution to science by observing variable stars and submitting their observations to the AAVSO International Database.

In addition to the valuable observations that members make, their annual dues support the work carried on at headquarters.

STARS and STAR OF THE WEEK

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/~kaler/sow/sowlist.html

Department of Astronomy
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://www.astro.uiuc.edu

Minor Planets Center - International Astronomical Union

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, under the auspices of Division III of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), with significant funding coming from subscriptions to the various services offered by the Center.

The MPC is responsible for the designation of minor bodies in the solar system: minor planets; comets (in conjunction with CBAT); and natural satellites (also in conjunction with CBAT). The MPC is also responsible for the efficient collection, (computation,) checking and dissemination of astrometric observations and orbits for minor planets and comets, via the Minor Planet Circulars (issued generally on a monthly basis), the Minor Planet Circulars Orbit Supplement (MPO) (issued three or four times per year), the Minor Planet Circulars Supplement (MPS) (issued three or four times a month) and the Minor Planet Electronic Circulars (issued as necessary, generally at least once per day).

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html

A good review of Classic Papers in Astronomy and Cosmology

by SpaceTiger (Member of PhysicsForums)

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=86267

On-line lecture notes in Astrophysics

http://www.astro.utu.fi/~cflynn/teaching.2.html

and

http://www.astronomynotes.com/index.html

The Nearest Stars to Earth
These are our closest neighbors!

http://cassfos02.ucsd.edu/public/nearest.html

Fellow Astronomers...

An excellent compilation of astronomical links and sites gathered here...and I would like to include my own as well if I may.



The Chicago Astronomer started out as a simple newsletter highlighting celestial events mainly for Chicago area residents.  But when the forum was created, individuals from around the world have joined in on the discussions and has become a comfortable place to post all things astronomical.

Nice site here and I hope to chime in on the topics from time to time.

Respectfully,

Joe Guzmán
Chicago Astronomer

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v209/josephguzman/ChicagoAstronomer/skyline1.jpg)

Hey CA, very cool!   8)

 :koala

Earth's seasonal dates, Perihelion, Aphelion, and Solstices and Equinoxes
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html

Moon Phases (2000-2010, or 1700-2035)
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/MoonPhase.html

 :koala

Information on Cosmology and Astrophysics -

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/cosmo.html

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/astcon.html#c1

The Hyperphysics site hosted by Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University, C. Rod Nave.

 :koala

Auckland Astronomical Society

http://www.astronomy.org.nz/aas/pub/home.asp

 :koala

Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik
(Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics) or MPE - http://www.mpe.mpg.de/

Astronomy Resources from MPE - http://www.mpe.mpg.de/AstR/  :1thumbup

Tod Strohmayer's Webpage at NASA/GSFC
X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory
http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/~stroh/

Research:

• High Frequency X-ray Variability of Stellar Mass Black Holes
• Superbursts from Accreting Neutron Stars
• Millisecond X-ray Variability in Accreting Neutron Star Binaries
• Millisecond Oscillations During Thermonuclear X-ray Bursts
• Studies of Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) and Magnetars
• "X-ray Spectral Characteristics of GINGA Gamma-Ray Bursts"
• X-ray Spectroscopy of Neutron Star Binaries and Bursters

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer Mission - http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/xte_1st.html
(1995-present)

The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) is a satellite that observes the fast-moving, high-energy worlds of black holes, neutron stars, X-ray pulsars and bursts of X-rays that light up the sky and then disappear forever.

RXTE discovery archives - http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/learning_center/discovery_archive.html

Really cool link on Jupiter.

http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~baffa/Astro/solar/jupiter.htm

This looks like a really cool idea!

http://www.saharasky.com/  :1thumbup

http://www.saharasky.com/starsen/instrumentsen.htm

Comparison of N. Africa and Europe at night.

http://www.hotel-sahara.com/night.JPG

 :koala

Ask an Astronomer - at Cornell

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/index.php

 :koala

UCLA Galactic Center Group
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/

NGC Galaxies in the SDSS Data Release 2 (DR2)

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/PrettyPictures/NGC/

Wow, there is a lot of cool stuff out there!

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/PrettyPictures/NGC/NGC4513-mosaic.jpg

Three spiral galaxies in a row!

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/PrettyPictures/NGC/NGC6977-mosaic.jpg

Galaxies - profile and broadside
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/PrettyPictures/NGC/NGC5775-mosaic.jpg

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~rhl/PrettyPictures/NGC/NGC493-mosaic.jpg

Boy do we need warp drive!

 :koala

Star Parties and Viewing at the MacDonald Obsevatory.

WOW!  This is really cool!  :1thumbup

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors/programs/index.html#SpecialViewing

One can view with the 82" or 107" telescopes!

You can see some serious stuff with these dudes.

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors/tour/index.html#82

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors/tour/index.html#107

Another link related to the ones posted by Skeptigirl.

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/solar_sites.html

http://www.solarmonitor.org/index.php

 :koala

The HARPS home page - http://obswww.unige.ch/Instruments/harps/Welcome.html

High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Search project
 

HARPS is a spectrometer dedicated to the search for extrasolar planets by means of the technique of precise radial velocity measurement. HARPS is developed by a consortium headed by the Geneva Observatory. It will be installed at the Coude room of the 3.6 meter telescope at La Silla, with an optical fiber link to the Cassegrain focus.

 :koala

Jim Loy's Astronomy/Space Page
http://www.jimloy.com/astro/astro.htm
 
 :koala

Very Large Telescope Interferometer
http://www.vlti.org/home.php (http://www.vlti.org/home.php)

ONTHEFRINGE is a series of four schools designed to train young astronomers in optical interferometry. Optical interferometry is a new technology enabling observations with angular resolution an order of magnitude larger than the largest single telescopes available at visible and infrared wavelengths. Optical interferometry is the only technology allowing the systematic direct detection and characterization of Earthlike planets orbiting other stars. Therefore it plays a key role in ESAs long-range plan through the Darwin mission, and in NASA's Origins program via TPF-I. On the ground Europe has achieved leadership with the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI).
 
Interferometry from the ground will play a central role in:

- understanding the lifecycles of stars in the Milky Way,
- the discovery and characterization of planets orbiting stars in the solar neighborhood, and
- the understanding of the energy conversion mechanisms in Active Galactic Nuclei.

Is  the   forum   alive?